I didn't stray too far from the original and just wanted to kick it up a notch for the clubs and that's really what the label wanted. That's the problem with some of the more uptempo hip hop tracks, they put a 4/4 kick but fail to kick the beats up into something usable outside mainstream clubs.
Production notes // The main melody synth was the Lennar Digital Sylenth1. The bass was a combination of Native Instruments Massive, my Access Virus Ti, and a pizzicato cello from reFX Nexus. The 8th note side-chained bass is GForce Minimonsta. The arpeggio is Rob Papen's Albino. The stringy synth lead is my Roland Juno 106 layered with the Native Instruments Pro53 VSTi.
This song, love it or hate it, is #1 in the country. I got the call, I remixed it. More like slapped it up, flipped it, & rubbed it down into a funky club track. Stretched the vocals to 124 in Abelton Live and bounced them into Cubase to do the mix.
Production notes //The bass is a Spectrasonics Trilogy Electric Bass patch I made and processed it through a Antares Tube & Waves RBass and added a small amount of side-chain compression from the kick to give the kick a little room to breathe. I used reFX Nexus for the piano. The strings were a combination of Steinberg's own Hypersonic 2 and Garritan Personal Orchestra's string ensemble. The guitar is from the original song parts, amazing how at the original tempo it's country rock sounding, stretched 24 BPMs and it's funky. I obviously had to take the Fedde Le Grand "Put Your Hands Up" vocal snippet out because of legal reasons if the label released it with them, but the posted mixes have them in it.
Been loving the original for a bit now so it was great when I got the call to remix it. The original was at 90 BPM so I used Abelton Live to stretch the vocals to 120 and then imported them into Cubase to get my groove on.
The original was a very chill electronica vibe so after about 9 sketches I realized that it wasn't gonna be funky or electro house and most importantly needed to leave room for the vocals which could get lost real quick. In the end this is what I went with and I am pretty happy how it turned out, and the label was as well. Should be out next month. I was waiting until I got the video to post this... enjoy and go catch some fireflies.
Production notes // The plug-ins I used for this mix were: reFX Nexus & Vanguard, GForce Minimonsta, Lennar Digital Sylenth1, and Native Instruments Massive. The bass sounds were side-chained with OtiumFX Compadre Beatpuncher. The drums and FX were various samples and Spectrasonics Stylus RMX.
